Folie d'Homme
by Fogs of Gray
Summary: All things considered, Macon shouldn't have thought this was, in any way, a good idea.
1. Dans ce Monde

Well, hell's bells. I've rewritten this plot-line about…five times? I'd rather just get it out here and move on with my life, so maybe there'll be two/three chapters, not the twenty of A la Folie. Mind you, they are lengthier than usual. Unfortunately, that means I had to delete A la Folie…which received more feedback than I expected and was absolutely painful to part with but wouldn't have made sense with this final draft.

((Also! Everything except for the first scene in this chapter is a flashback of sorts. We all know this would go down in flames, didn't we? So, I'm establishing that first thing.))

All disclaimers apply.

* * *

><p>He hates being sentimental. He hates standing around watching the sun set, the ironic gleam bobbing just above the trees. He hates the ash sinking into the river.<p>

Macon's words in his ear are all that keep him sane, not that he wants to be.

It's entirely too cold. _Remember the plan. _Not that Macon had sounded optimistic when they were plotting what seemed like weeks ago. Now, he can imagine hearing Macon try, at least, for what little it mattered. Even that was diminished when he remembered the hearse running off the road into a heavily forested slope of a hill. The kid—gods, what they named her?—was probably tucked into the back of a car, on her way to Valerian, and into Silas's arms. Leah had probably already left town. He didn't even want to consider Macon.

He shivers. _We don't know anything, yet. _And yet, his car is sinking into the river. He hates the thought of all the small things becoming lost to the water—the infuriating etchings Leah made with her pocket knife, the smell of old books and gunpowder that surrounds (surrounded?) Macon, the map he kept in the glove compartment with all his getaway routes marked clearly.

He wants to believe everyone's somehow still alive. Maybe in a cell. Maybe in Valerian's custody. But alive, at least. He wants to believe all the way at Ravenwood Manor things will be as they were and one misstep isn't the end, can't be, won't be. However, the facts are there and Fitz has never been great at denying them. If he begins, he'll never stop, won't be able to, and then he'll never get out of this town alive.

Fitz starts walking because he can't do much else.

The sun starts to set.

* * *

><p>The heist began at five o'clock in the afternoon.<p>

The beginning of everything else is far earlier when Macon decides he's going to become, if not a happy man, then, at least, a very well known one. He straightens his back and counts up some of his old contacts, writes letters, and makes shadowy meetings as he once again starts the decent into the morally gray underworld. His name is already known; people are whispering his name around the edges of circles and inside dark, hidden houses. He doesn't mind. He wants them to.

The whispers are sure to get the word out, and true enough, within days, Leah, the confident woman and somewhat loving sister she is, shows up happy to join Macon in his venture. He vaguely remembers her penchant for poisonous flora and acts accordingly. They have, of course, worked together before, always separated by several miles and links in the chain of command. Leah has a little diner in the middle of town that sells New Orleans inspired food and has the same dull interior as nearly every other eating establishment the town has to offer. While her business isn't booming, it's sufficient enough to launder some money. A good start up, certainly. It has a somewhat large basement that connects to the natural caves that sprawl under the town, which, while intimidating and not everyone's cup of tea, is hardly a downfall. They work well together, the two of them, almost as though they actually had grown up together. It isn't long before she gives him the grand tour of her establishment, and he can't help but notice the various potted plants beside classical literature.

Macon handles the project like he deals with most things: slowly, but decisively. He sets up safe houses by trading and intimidating. The first of which is the Manor he claimed from Silas, a relic of the family name and the family's criminal history. While he doesn't occupy it often, and the reinforced shack by the river is better by far, it is safe; no Caster would set foot beyond its threshold.

The pair starts to earn money, starts to think about the future of their little operation. Macon begins lurking around other town's speakeasies under a fake name, Mel Valentin, and finds a distant acquaintance.

* * *

><p>Obidias has a crooked stint to his nose and thinness in his lips. He's thrown out on a regular basis, from what Macon has observed, and nearly every single time sports bruised knuckles. His name is known in almost every establishment, which is how Macon relearns it and is why he becomes interested.<p>

Macon follows him out onto the cold, rain-slick street one night. Obidias is wet from more than the rain. The tenseness in his shoulders causes Macon's breath to huff. He stops stumbling and stands straighter when he looks Macon in the eye.

"What's the matter?" Obidias drawls, rolling his shoulders.

Macon shakes his head. "How are you?"

A thick eyebrow rises. "None of your business, boy."

Macon hazards a step towards him and takes his hands out of his pockets. "Why do you fight?" he asks, trying to perfect his tone of voice. He's always too conscious of how he sounds—which is what happens when you have plenty of secrets that could very well kill you, and whose every word could be the difference between lead in his chest and a knife at his neck.

"To show I can," is Obidias's cryptic answer. _His _voice hides thing, too. Macon can understand the sentiment all too well.

"What if I could give you something to fight for?" A sharp bark of a laugh escapes the man, and Macon can't help but flash a smile. There's blood running from the wound on Obidias's lip, and Macon remembers the taste of the aftermath of a fight like that, the rush of adrenaline, the feel of bones breaking under palms.

"I am not a cheap thug."

"Think bigger."

Obidias is quiet for a minute, then two. He pulls a cigarette, lights it, and is halfway through it before he passes a sideways glance at Macon. "You trying to save me, Cubus?"

"All I want, Obidias, is for you to make both of us very well known, very rich men." He pauses and hooks his thumbs in his pockets. "Drugs, liquor, murders…" He speaks slowly, allowing each word to click in his head. When Obidias opens his mouth to refute, Macon adds, "It can't be worse than where you are now, can it?"

Macon jots down the address in his black notebook, on the back of a list of establishments, and tears a page from it. He hands it to Obidias who tucks it into his pocket and puffs a few smoke rings into the evening. There are droplets of water on his skin.

* * *

><p>Obidias was on the street for a while. Then he was off the street. Then he was on morphine and laudanum for a while. Then he was off them. Then he was off his rocker and then he was down in the gutter and his clothes still aren't clean—there's a ruddy stain on his white shirt and some of the pearl buttons are missing—and his skin hasn't healed when he shows up at Macon's front door. He knows enough to understand it's not Macon's private place, that he probably has several other safe houses and places around town. He still feels nervous, queasiness knots itself in his stomach, and he dimly regrets not finishing off the flash he had and getting somewhat drunk, when he knocks on the door.<p>

The shack is very empty.

Of course, he is pleased to find there's no initiation or cultish ritual to pass. No band of wild, angry men. He's seen recruits beaten half to death to prove their loyalty, but Macon simply tells him to make himself comfortable. When he puts his hand on Obidias's shoulder, it feels like it leaves behind a mark not unlike a tattoo. Leah accepts him with a simple nod, and the three of them begin plotting how to advance the business horizontally.

* * *

><p>The first time they send him out to kill someone, he notices Leah studying him more than usual. He can't distinguish if it's concern or if he's being tested. It's a quick kill, a hunting knife beneath the ribs and jerked sideways, and, after it's done, Obidias can simply forget about it and leave the corpse behind as he backtracks through alleys. The dead man is some conman nobody will miss—except, maybe, for those whose distribution he was handling.<p>

He spends the days at _Lucille's_ and the nights in his own flat south of town, sleeping better than he has in months.

* * *

><p>Macon pins the grand map of the city above his desk at <em>Lucille's<em>. The tacks don't match—one of them is from the corkboard downstairs, didn't evade Leah's busy hands, and sticks crookedly—and the map has more than a few tears in the corners, but he has to admit it belongs there more than another portrait from the Ravenwood family. He remembers his half-sister, then. He makes a note of it in his notebook and starts to strike up old ties with family, particularly the Natural, Izabel, his half-sister, the next day. While she was disowned from the Duchannes side, and Macon knew Silas was intimidated yet curious, he begins to make himself somewhat close to her.

Izabel evades his polite requests for visits enough in the first month of correspondence that Macon turns to her husband, John Eades, the illusionist. He is, undoubtedly, kinder and less skeptical than Izabel, but fears Macon's history would be dangerous in the Eades-Duchannes household.

The first break through he has with John and Izabel is when he finds the girl, completely out of the blue and with soot-covered knees.

* * *

><p>Neither Obidias nor Leah has seen Macon the entire night. It's not unusual, but when the two of them eat breakfast together and Obidias asks about the situation, he learns Leah doesn't know either and becomes slightly worried. Leah, normally, knows all but the darkest things about Macon's comings and goings. Obidias finds himself fidgeting a little.<p>

Then Macon shows up, and Obidias just laughs over the pouring rain pounding against their roof.

"Did you roll in some ashes, boy?" he manages. Macon looks at him harshly, as though he's too sober for that conversation, but he doesn't relent. "You've got bedhead." It's true—Macon is more messed up than normal with unusually mussed hair and dark circles under his eyes, wearing the same wrinkled shirt he wore the last time they met.

Then, a girl steps forward from behind Macon. The girl has the wild curls of her mother and the green eyes of her father. Her father who could be the mangled piece of bone and char inside the skeleton of their home. The girl hiccups and sobs into Macon's shoulder while he holds her, cries because she doesn't like the color of Obidias's eyes, and his hands are trembling, not because he cares, because he had killed with those hands not an hour before. The rain stops not ten minutes later.

When he finally gets to glance away from the mess of the girl's hair, he almost smiles at the look on Leah's face. The chair in front of her has been pushed to the floor, the map is rolled up firmly, and she settles for having Macon sit the girl on the edge of the newly cleared hickory desktop.

Macon lingers in the doorway while she gives the girl a run down. Leah doesn't ask questions other than where the girl hurts and mumbled apologies for the alcohol smarting. The girl asks where the scary man went, and all Leah can manage behind a giggle is that he's gone away for a while. The girl inquires what the plants are on the bookshelf, and Leah responds as efficiently and thoroughly as an encyclopedia. The girl didn't ask more than that; Macon assumed she thought the botanicals were simply flowers, simply pretty things for the office Leah kept.

* * *

><p>They run into Fitz by accident. Or, rather, he runs into them. Macon walks down the street with his head down and shoulders squared, an umbrella up among the rest of the pedestrians, and with a vision on his mind. He hadn't voiced it to Leah yet—his beloved sister was busy teaching the young girl they rescued how to protect herself—but he had made quick sketches on the grand map of the city he had rolled and leant against his desk.<p>

He doesn't notice, then, when a man bumps shoulders with him on the narrow sidewalk, steals his wallet, and mutters a polite, brisk apology. He only realizes his mistake when he stops into the general store, and has to walk another three blocks to the pawnshop, the one he made a deal behind only ten minutes previous, and has to pawn his pocket watch to buy a decent set of shoes for the girl.

* * *

><p>Three days later, Fitz isn't dead.<p>

After he realized he had pickpocketed Macon Ravenwood, _the _Macon Ravenwood, son of Silas Ravenwood, Fitz had gone into lockdown. He burned the wallet—the smell of burning leather had been overwhelming in his small apartment, but he had refused to get close enough to the window to consider opening it—and shoved the cash under his mattress. He had enough food in his cabinets to sustain him for a few days, a week; perhaps he had enough to stay however long it took for his hands to stop shaking whenever he thought about going outside. He drank a lot of coffee, smoked through a bag of tobacco, and didn't sleep more than his sanity would let him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew, objectively, the smartest thing to do was to pack his meager belongings, what belongings a nomadic lifestyle would gather, and skip town. It would be easy enough to hire a taxi to take him out by Lough Borough and King's Cross. He doesn't want to chance walking out of his apartment, though, and the thought of Ravenwood lounging against the wall with a knife-gleam smile is enough to keep him wary.

But, three days later, Fitz is still alive. No one knocked on his door. His apartment had not been bombed. His window wasn't shattered. His landlady hadn't been threatened—he supposed Macon preferred the term _coerced_—into opening his door. And, three days later, he begins to breathe easy again.

He leaves the house for the first time later that day to buy more coffee, toilet paper, several packages of Comet rice, and three glasses of Ballantine's ginger ale. He makes another quick stop to grab rolling papers before locking himself in his apartment. That night, he took Ravenwood's cash from under his mattress and stared—the bills weren't sequential, there was nothing to deem them as belonging to Ravenwood—and after a moment of deliberation, he folded them into his wallet.

* * *

><p>He goes out a few nights later, to a different side of town. He dresses carefully, making sure not to wear anything he had the day he pickpocketed Ravenwood, and liberates wallets and bracelets from victims who are too busy to care. Once, he thinks he feels eyes on him, but he shrugs the feeling away with the paranoia. He'd gotten away with it, scot-free. Ravenwood wasn't coming for him.<p>

When he returns home, he spends the next day on the verge of a panic attack, locked and barricaded in his apartment with the lights off. The wallet he's stolen, one of them, was cheap leather and absolutely desolate for cash, but there is a business card. A business card that, on one side, read, in ornate calligraphy, _I expect you at seven in the evening. _He didn't have to turn it over to understand who, exactly, had sent it.

Ravenwood had found Fitz, had planned it. He wonders how long they had followed him, because they had to be, _had _to—the man at the store had entered a few minutes after Fitz, and he wonders how close the man was to Ravenwood, how many he had killed, and if he even knew what had been planted on him. They knew where Fitz lived, certainly. They knew where he shopped, where he bought back-alley cigarettes.

Fitz memorizes the address. There isn't any way he's leaving town, not now.

* * *

><p>He heads out the next evening with plenty of time to spare, just in case he mysteriously falls from a height or ends up at the bottom of a river. He can't afford to be late. The address on the card leads him to a quiet diner with yellow glowing streetlights and a quaint sign heralding its name. <em>Lucille's<em>. He wonders how many if Ravenwood will kill him quickly or slowly. His hands shake. His hands sweat enough to smear the ink on the card and he pulls the fob out of his pocket in time to see the second hand strike 50. The door chimes with the soft ringing of a bell and closes behind him as his watch ticks over to seven. Seven-o-one comes slowly. Then seven-o-two. Then there's a gleam in the shadows of the empty diner, something blunt hits him over the head, and he's out before he has time to make a noise.

* * *

><p>Leah had mentioned the man at a distance. Macon had complimented the coat she had worn one day, a French Paletot in a navy hue, and she had responded with some anecdote about her persuading it off of a soldier. Later, off-handedly, she mentions he was a sniper. He deems the position necessary for building his small empire and marks it down in the small black notebook he carries around, next to the note about the electricity bills. In his mind, he already has the Frenchman in the office down the hall.<p>

The man in front of him is not French. His English is basic and often broken with bouts of German, Austrian, and Hungarian. He's stumbling through apologies. Macon lets him. If nothing else, it makes his spirits slightly higher. With the constant mantra of _please, please, please, _Macon almost pities the man.

He crouches in front of the man in order to stop his babbling. "What's your name?" The man's brows furrow. "Come now. What do you call yourself?"

"Ludovic."

"Ah, well. That wasn't difficult." A smile tugs at his lips. "Ludovic," he repeated, the name clipping off his tongue sharply. "Do you have a last name?"

The man's green eyes dart to the floor. "Fitzwilliam."

"Now, Ludovic Fitzwilliam, do you know why we called you here?" Tenseness finds itself in the Caster's upper lip. "If I wanted you dead, Ludovic, I would have killed you days ago when you stole my wallet." He meets the green stare. "That was my mistake. I don't blame you for that much." He takes a breath and stood. "The only thing I'm curious about, the only thing that matters, really, is if you can shoot." Fitzwilliam's hands twitch. "A rifle?"

"Steyr-Mannlicher."

"German?"

"Austrian." Macon nods once. He turns on his heels sharply to look at Fitzwilliam. There's madness in his eyes, something that burns with a passion that causes Fitzwilliam to square his shoulders and ball his fists. Macon grabs Fitzwilliam's wrist quickly and presses his palm against his own.

"There's an apartment closer to here. Given, it's in poor condition." The key glimmers and, instinctively, Fitzwilliam's fingers close around it.

"What do I have to do?"

"Carry on as if nothing's changed." He hopes Fitzwilliam hears the implied knowledge Macon has of where Fitzwilliam lives. He wonders if Fitzwilliam even cares. The man leaves, then, as though nothing has happened at all.

* * *

><p>It becomes a running theme with Fitzwilliam.<p>

Leah starts visiting his apartment every few weeks. She asks questions when they are on jobs together, does her best to become close acquaintances, but Fitzwilliam is closed around himself. They never get much closer than Leah occasionally making late night pancakes for Fitzwilliam.

He's a bit jittery and there are awful circles under his eyes, but he's entirely competent all the same. The first time Macon gives him a target, it's a clean kill, bullet between the eyes eight hours after Fitzwilliam gets the letter. It's the same for the next one. And the next. And the next.

Sometimes he helps Leah, who has time for a multitude of odd jobs. Macon sends them to move packages, deal with people who don't pay, scare off rivals. She notices it's a lot easier to be intimidating with Fitzwilliam at her back.

* * *

><p>Even when they manage to find the funds to repair another room, the nice one with two windows and access to the attic, Fitzwilliam doesn't move in. Instead, Lena—they've decided on it by altering Leah's nickname for her, String Bean—receives a room to herself, which houses the few possessions she does have.<p>

The four of them don't see each other often, despite the living arrangement. Their sleeping patterns are too irregular for that, but every time they share a morning together, Leah swears Macon looks a little fonder. They maintain a professional relationship, all of them; Leah suspects Macon takes great care too make sure none of them see him blackout drunk or showering. Still, for Leah, seeing Macon late at night, pouring over that map with his suit jacket slung over his chair and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, is enough.

* * *

><p>Macon takes things into his own hands a few days after Fitzwilliam's fifth kill. Fitzwilliam skulks in for a briefing and hangs around when they have a small meeting around the map of the city. They pay more attention to Macon when he explains what has to be done and by whom, if there's anything (or anyone) they need to take care of, where there are and what the police know. Fitzwilliam leans against the bookcase, beneath the nightshade and narcissus, and bites his lip.<p>

"I can do that," he states, interrupting Macon's plan.

Macon nods and agrees to let Fitzwilliam accompany him into the field later that week because he sure as hell isn't taking down an establishment alone. This means Fitzwilliam stays slightly more often. And once they return from the job, Macon seems to have taken a liking to the immigrant.

For some reason—maybe because Leah actively tries to make it so—Fitzwilliam and her end up working together very often. She shows him what alleys are safe and what stores will let you hide in their backrooms, and, slowly, they become somewhat close.

* * *

><p>When Fitzwilliam awakes, there's coffee brewing and Leah sitting on his table. "Macon's planning something," Fitz mumbles as a garbled question.<p>

"Just a little robbery, Ludovic."

"I bet we—" He cuts off with a yawn.

"Tired?" She's too chipper for what looks like four in the morning.

"I didn't sleep well, is all." He takes a breath and stretches. "Pass me some coffee." Leah pours it for him without really questioning it. It seems somewhat natural. And they don't say much while Leah makes him breakfast—Leah watches Fitzwilliam, the moonlight still brightly shining through the open window and onto his face. He smiles a lopsided smile and criticizes her for her kindness and the slight burning of pancakes. She supposes it's somewhat rude but his smile makes up for it.

Fitzwilliam gets up and puts his plate in the sink, and Leah follows suit. Knowing Fitzwilliam had to dress and prepare, Leah offers to do the dishes, and he reluctantly accepts. A second before darting off to get properly dressed, he presses a quick kiss to Leah's cheek; his lips barely brush against skin, but the sensation is enough to make Leah stop for a second.

She resumes cleaning more slowly, rubbing large circles on the plates with a sponge. She'd need to get back to _Lucille's _soon. Boo, as much as he was Macon's eyes, couldn't babysit _Lucy's _adopted child. Macon, the capable man he is, could very well watch the kid while Leah makes a run with Fitzwilliam, but she wonders if she trusts him, trusts herself. She barely trusts herself with whatever's transpiring between Fitzwilliam and herself.

She turns on the cold water and puts the last cup up to dry. Frustrating, all of it.


	2. Fumée

Another chapter? Yeppers. And a quick author's note, which I'm sure no one will complain about. Next chapter will be up soon.

* * *

><p>The job goes smoothly. Of course, Obidias's definition of smooth includes copious amounts of gunfire, death, and splintered glass, but everyone's alive, so Fitzwilliam can't complain.<p>

Fitzwilliam is on his rooftop half an hour before the rest of the team arrives. He watches the beaten down factory through the sights of his rifle, flexing his fingers against the anticipation of pulling the trigger. Obidias and Leah—it has to be Leah, but her hair is tucked into a cap and there's black powder on her jawline that mimics stubble—park the car, a 1914 Humberette, on the shoulder of the road and disappear into the building after Fitzwilliam downs three guards outside. It takes longer than Macon said it would; Fitzwilliam's fingers tense on the trigger multiple times. But then they're out; Leah's slinging a bag over her shoulder, and all Fitzwilliam gets to hit is the form that appears leaning against the brick. He can see, in the scope, dark eyes, dark hair, a leather jacket, and he misses his shot by piercing the brick beside the man's head. The dark eyes meet his, nearly thirty yards away, and Fitzwilliam shivers. Others, maybe ten, make their way from the building. One of the two, Fitzwilliam hopes it is Obidias, starts shooting and the dark eyes turn their focus from Fitzwilliam to the shooter. The Humberette disappears in the echo of gunshots and space tearing.

Leah's in the passenger seat and throws a glance out her window to the dusky sky. She's fidgeting with her pocketknife, leaving little etches in the wood. When Obidias acknowledges her, she sighs, and her voice arched higher. "I saw Fitzwilliam." She doesn't elaborate, and Obidias can't ask her to. Instead, he nods once and manages to make it into town without riddling their car with bullets.

And Fitzwilliam does stumble in the back door of the diner at about the same time Leah stops pacing, a bit exhausted-looking, but otherwise fine. He takes a deep breath and laughs quietly; he raises three shaking fingers in the air.

"Three headshots," he manages.

"Six," Leah states, as she runs her fingers through her pinned hair.

"You were closer."

"You weren't in the thick of it."

"I saved your life," Fitzwilliam says, inching closer to Leah, who leans against the wall, arms crossed and hair now falling down from under her cap.

"I distracted them from you," Leah replies. Her arms fall to her sides; her thumbs hook in her pockets as she takes a step forward.

"I saw it." Fitzwilliam tilts his head. "It looked bloody."

"It was," Leah quips.

Fitzwilliam closes the distance between them in a swift motion, presses their lips together—there's nothing gentle about it, nothing like the brushing kiss before, her fingers are carding through his hair, and his fingernails are digging into her neck. It lasts barely a moment before Leah lets go and Fitzwilliam pulls back. Only then does he put the bag containing his weapon down. They look at each other, both waiting for something, a reaction, anything. In fact, the whole room is tense and still. Macon has stopped his speech; Obidias has stopped counting money.

Macon pops a bottle of wine, Lena's eyes open sharply, and Boo quietly woofs.

As stares find him, he explains himself. "I bought it to celebrate a heist well done. This seemed like an appropriate moment." He inclined his head towards Fitzwilliam and Leah. "Congratulations, you two."

The pair stares at each other with equal parts confusion, tension, and something Macon can't place.

Obidias nods. "What Macon said. Now, let's count our money, hm?"

The activity distracts everyone enough that things go back to normal for a bit, and, now, Macon has a theory as to why Fitzwilliam didn't need the money.

* * *

><p>It only gets better from there.<p>

Their reputation gets bigger, their budget larger, and their lives easier. Everything gets a little faster: the new car (they've refurbished the hearse and it runs like a dream), the heists, their reaction time when Macon gets a tip about rival movements.

And, of course, things get more complicated between them. At first, he kind of misses how it used to be; when they were just acquaintances working together because of a single shared goal. Now it's no secret why Leah leaves every night and doesn't come back until nine, late enough that Macon and Obidias have to open _Lucille's _and scare off half of the customers between the two of them. That'd be okay—Macon doesn't judge them for wanting to find love, or some equivalent to it—if not for the fact of them being together means a few awkward questions for the rest of them.

Mainly the matter of who will take care of Lena.

Lena, who is always in his bed, right in the middle so there's no way of Macon even thinking of sleeping in _his own bed_ but he does on the desk. Lena, who pulls his hand in the middle of the night and crawls into his arms despite Macon's strong protests and the pull in his chest. Lena, who slips up and calls Macon 'Da' but is far away before anyone asks her what she means. And, one day, when Macon is graced with the presence of the child, the child who is damn near asleep on her feet, he asks her a question that's been a long time coming, billowing up from his tense stomach and smoke-filled lungs.

"Lena, where do you think you are?"

"With you," is the answer he receives, but he immediately knows she's more competent than that, just a good liar.

"Yes, but where's your mother?" Macon continues, his voice as flat and emotionless as he can make it, as if he's simply asking about the oncoming storms.

"She's gone." She leans her head against his shoulder. "She went away."

He doesn't relent. Well, he doesn't want to. He wants to know why she's so comfortable here, why she's absolutely at ease with the random gifts and sudden change of location doesn't make her question anything. "And your father?"

She hesitates, then. "He was there when the baddies found us." She blinks, Macon glances down to her, and he can't bring himself to stop asking. "When you found me." Her lip quivers. A furrow starts between her brows. "Why…why didn't you save him, too?"

"There wasn't enough time." He doesn't mention the risk of toting around a grown man was far too high for what he was insured for, or that his shoulder wouldn't have allowed him to do much than drag her father through the burning house and then none of them would have survived. "He died painlessly, I assure you that." He knew that much. He had eased killed him himself, softly, of course, a quick separation in the connection between the man's brain and his heart.

He leans his elbows on his knees. "Who would you like to live with, Lena, if the time came?" When she doesn't answer, he glances at her. "With Leah and Fitzwilliam?" She fidgets the hem of her shirt nervously. "With Obidias?" He fervently hopes she wouldn't approve of that.

She scoots towards the edge of the couch and grips the arm of the couch. "I…can we not talk about it?"

Macon looks at her in the way he usually looks at hired underlings and people he's about to shoot. It's a look that works wonders and makes him feel a bit bad about himself, but he assures himself that it's the only way.

She closes her eyes. "I think…I think there's nothing wrong with…I mean…" Lena exhales. To Macon, it looks like she's giving up, leaning into the cushions, pushing further away, but letting go of her tight grasp on the couch arm. "I like all of you, maybe?"

Macon needs a second to understand, and he watches her lips twitch a little, her eyes on the ground. "That's not a choice, Lena."

"You."

"What?" He nearly sputters the water he took a sip of.

"You, too," she mumbles.

"That's—" Macon begins, but Lena cuts him off.

"Leah's th' one who came up with it. What if we were all—" She huffs and falls back, her head in his lap, and his hands come up unexpectedly to protect her. "What if we were all a big family? I know you care about Lila Jane." He blinks and his mouth goes dry.

"How…how do you know that name?"

"You talk about her sometimes, when you sleep." She moves on as if it's nothing. "I think Leah has Fitz…Fitzwull…" She stumbles on the name.

"Fitzwilliam," Macon supplies.

"She has his address memorized for a reason." She toys with his ring carefully, spinning it between her fingers. "I mean, we wouldn't have to choose, then, would we?" He resists the urge to roll his eyes. "What do you think?"

"I think it's far passed your bedtime." She nods once. "And, if it's worth anything, Lena, I'll talk with the group about it."

She giggles. The sound starts loud in her chest and grows lighter. He scoops her up into his arms and stands carefully. When they walk through the hallway, Fitzwilliam is there, the only one of them who is completely sane, and the sound of Lena's giggle causes a smile to pull his lips. He'll deny it in the morning; Macon has no doubt. Obidias watches them make their lumbering way towards Macon's study.

Macon places Lena on his bed and, then, leaves her there, after reading a chapter from Emma—her choice from when he had nothing better to do with his itching fingers than rearrange his bookshelf—and turning down the lights, for an hour and a half before he, too, goes to sleep there. The bed is large enough they aren't close; they're not even touching, and Macon sleeps on the sheets while Lena cuddles deeper inside them.

When he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, he paces the halls to check on his employees, Lena's words cut through him—_a family, indeed_—and he returns to drape an arm over the sleeping young girl beside him. By the morning, she's snoring into his chest.

* * *

><p>Macon wakes up first, panicking a little, heart racing, breath stuck in his throat, regrets flying through him, and <em>oh, gods, what had he done? What had he promised?<em>

Nothing, really, he gathers. He blinks and takes inventory. He's still wearing his clothes, which is a start. But he figures something must have happened for him to end up cuddling with a seven-year-old girl. His barely-there headache doesn't make thinking any easier.

He carefully leaves bed—thankfully, Lena remains fast asleep—and gathers his jacket from the back of the chair. Puts it on. Leaves.

In the kitchen, he sees Leah sitting with her cup of tea—she can't stand the jump of caffeine in coffee, but somehow manages tea well enough—brown hair shining in the morning light. It's too bright.

"Morning, brother-dearest," she says. Macon nods. "Things were discussed last night, I take it?"

"Yes," Macon eventually allows, albeit hesitantly. He glances at the door and then to the sunlight. "Storm today?" Leah nods.

"An east wind is blowing in." He nods once. "Where are you going?"

"To smoke," he quips. The words come out slowly, almost too much so. He knows that. He wants to stay away for a little while, simply until Lena wakes up, so he doesn't have to sit around waiting or face Lena going from sleepy to wide awake of whatever she remembers. Macon feels like he's ruined something, possibly.

He makes for the back door, but it slams open inches from his face. He jolts involuntarily. Fitzwilliam stares back and whistles lowly, eyes wide. He looks like he has a worse hangover than Macon. He places a hand on Macon's shoulder.

"Macon," he says, his voice low and serious, and Macon's autopilot turns on.

"Good morning, Fitzwilliam."

"Did something go wrong?"

"Nothing at all." There's a faint, youthful smile playing on Fitz's lips.

"Really? You told us all last night we were raising Lena together." Macon vaguely remembers that, yes, sometime after tucking Lena in and falling onto the sheets with brandy on his lips. "Might as well call her Lucy."

Then, he does the most unexpected thing. He reaches out, grabs Macon's shoulder, and pulls him in for a hug. Before he knows it, Leah has her arms around the both of them. It's not tight or uncomfortable…the weight is just there. She lets go soon enough, Fitz steps away like he's stuck his hand in a fire, and, when Leah speaks, there's a slight tired drawl in her voice. "Want some tea, Macon?"

He nods once, all he can manage. While waiting for his mug of chamomile, he sees Obidias curled up under the gray quilt on the couch. Hears Lena get up in his room. Hears Boo's nails click against the hardwood.

He takes the tea with him, despite the nagging that won't leave him alone, and ducks into the clouded alley.

* * *

><p>Once the rocky morning-after is past them, the arrangement works out better than any of them dared to expect. Lena goes from borrowing Fitzwilliam's couch to getting her own bed, tucked beneath the window. Obidias <em>almost <em>stops secluding himself, and Leah gets to kiss Macon's cheek and make breakfast for everyone, waiting with a cup of tea in hand.

Fitzwilliam never really had—or wanted—someplace to call home, but he's starting to think this might be it.

Okay, he's not really the most normal person, he knows that much. He doesn't sleep on the same schedule as everyone else. And he's not as good as the rest of them when he comes to sharing personal experiences. He doesn't mind the "family" arrangement, but he can't suppress a certain possessive urge to make sure whenever Macon tucks Leah's hair up and pats charcoal along her jawline, he sees a mark Fitzwilliam's left.

He still fits in like the last piece of a puzzle.

He fits in the space between Macon and Obidias when Leah challenges Lena to asinine contests. He fits in the space in the apartment that would be too empty and cold without him. He fits into the blackness of Macon's shadow when he goes down to meet shady dealers in the dead of night, and he fits in between words and sentences when they talk about everything and nothing.

When they head for the promenade in the spring, about five months after he's joined up, he carries a grenade with him in his pocket and the others accept it as much as they can. They all run a little differently. Fitzwilliam gets to watch Lena eat candy floss in amounts he could have sworn would be enough to kill a person, Obidias brings his sketchbook and charcoal, and Macon pays for the ordeal. Leah gets to play a parody of a doting girlfriend when she leans against the carnival booth as Fitzwilliam shoots targets to the best of his ability only to find he's not as good as he thought at close range. Macon performs better, winning a large teddy bear, which he readily gives to Lena, much to Obidias's amusement. Fitzwilliam's next shot is a bull's eye, and, while the prize is much smaller than Macon's, he's satisfied when he hands it over to Leah, who jokes around it, but might like it. He doesn't see the thing ever again, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Leah keeps many things to herself.

* * *

><p>Sometimes Fitzwilliam takes things. Sometimes, when Leah is sitting on her office alone, he wanders over to the potted plants and inspects them. It's her garden, one of a kind. There are small daisies, a few herbs, and various flowers she's picked up from flea markets last year, as well as a variety of poisonous plants. And the roses, not at all suited for being grown in a little pot so far from the ground, are red and vibrant, even if they are smaller than normal.<p>

He touches them gently, asking something along the lines of, "where did these come from?" and "can I borrow these?"

Today the answer is, "I stole them on one of _Lucille's _first heists." After a while, she answers the latter question. "Borrowing's not the right word. For what?"

"Love and things." Leah puts her tea down with a click and looks at him. Raises a single eyebrow. Fitzwilliam pretends he doesn't notice. "I'll just break this off, then—" he begins, but stands up with a startled yelp. "What in god's name, Leah?"

"What is it this time?" She doesn't look up from her daily newspaper.

"I almost lost my fingers."

"Roses have thorns, Fitz."

He shakes his head. "Not the thorns, Leah. There's a damned knife under there."

She smiles. "Be careful. We need those fingers."

"We do. Gods, Leah." He isn't as mad as he sounds; Leah knows that. She watches him cut off a few roses and take them away to where ever he goes. She always lets him because they end up in his flat anyway, nice and decorative and a little touch of her, even if they do look out of place. She resumes reading after checking if he took the jackknife with him and, upon happily discovering it's still there, moves it to another pot and lets it stay there under the leaves. She doesn't forget about her tools, either.

* * *

><p>She waits for him. There are long periods where they simply don't see each other for days on end, when Leah is persuading buyers and Fitzwilliam is waiting for his shot, but, in between those periods are the times where they work together or the occasions where Leah helps Fitzwilliam remove evidence. In her opinion, this is best done by arson. She likes to see the flames rise after she lights a match and throws it onto gasoline-soaked carpet.<p>

Fitzwilliam lives for his heart pounding and pulling pins from grenades and throwing them into buildings.

Most wanted criminal.

The rush of it all creates a kind of high, higher than any drug (and he's tried a few, never quite getting hooked), and, unlike before when he was on his own, he doesn't have to feel the crash. There's the same kind of pleasant warmth everywhere in his body. He sees the same fire in Macon's hands, in the corners of Lena's mouth, and in Obidias's eyes. It's in Leah's humming and in the way she grabs ahold of him like he's the only thing left because _they actually got away with it._

* * *

><p>There are a few close calls.<p>

There's one time Obidias vividly remembers, about four months after the carnival. He was out by the river, on the harbor, in the middle of the night, and only a few streetlights give him anything to go on as he runs down the docks, looking for the boat Macon said would, for sure, be there by now. He has a bag full of valuables, sure, but he's more worried for his life, at the moment. The yelling's getting closer. The headlights are suddenly too close, and, then, the cops get out. He realizes they're armed. His rifle's out of bullets and a grenade at this range is certain death where he'll get caught in the explosion. He takes a step back, stands on the edge of the dock. Behind him is only murky water.

He is accepting he has no choice but to take as many down as he can when he remembers one of Leah's random facts about water. _Jump back into the river, hope he doesn't get shot or drown, hope that they find him._

He throws a grenade as he jumps, which doesn't do wonders for his aim. He doesn't see the results, only the explosion as the blast helps throw him further backwards and deeper down into the water. All his soaked clothing brings him down, and, at first, he struggles to kick up before he manages to breach the surface. He waves his arms. Yells "I'm here, I'm here, where are you?".

A hand grabs his and pulls him onto a rowboat. He remembers his mind singing out _they came back, they came back_, before they pull him back into his element.

He remembers Leah saying something along the lines of it being the best exit she's seen. Soon after, he gets a small black cat tattooed on his forearm, a symbol of _Lucille's_.

* * *

><p>There's also the time where it's Fitzwilliam, back against the wall, and everyone else is in the process of bailing because there was a tip (Macon later announces the culprit was an outsider, but for all the others know Macon was covering for someone). No one plays the hero, this time. Instead of someone swinging in like they usually do, the Humberette doesn't make it in time, and there's a tear in space, a pull in Fitzwilliam's chest beyond the blood loss.<p>

The last thing Fitzwilliam remembers is a man's arm tight around his neck and the Humberette's tires squealing as Leah chased as Traveling overtook him.

It's not a good omen; however, Macon is an opportunist. This sort of thing does happen in a gang where the first priority is _not_ getting captured, minimizing the damage, and not playing the hero. Someone always missteps. Someone always miscalculates. He's only glad it's not him, and it's their stalwart soldier. Point of the matter is, once the remainder of them stumbles through the threshold, Fitzwilliam is gone and Macon is sure he knows where his captor took him.

Leah, of course, is less optimistic. And, when it's all said and done, Macon is the one who comes up with the idea of hitting Silas's Valerian. He explains, gesturing to the map pinned above his wall, now decorated with a throwing knife in between Lough Borough and King's Highway, that there, really, is the only place Fitzwilliam could be. He tips back in his chair, then, and raises his hands, awaiting the criticisms.

Obidias is the first to speak, drawling around his cigarette. "Valerian?" Macon nods. "We're challenging…" Obidias squints lightly. "We're challenging Silas Ravenwood." When Macon doesn't refute, Obidias curses lowly. "Hell's bells." Macon realizes, then, they are all too sober for this conversation.

Leah inclines her head. "What do we need to do?"

Macon doesn't stop the smile that twitches his lips.


	3. Sillage

I'm finished! Well, there's more that could be done, of course, but I'm setting this story down.

All disclaimers apply.

* * *

><p>They plan to have Lena stay with the Kents for the week. It's not difficult—the family owes quite a bit to <em>Lucille's <em>charity—but she doesn't want to go. She ends up cooperating because Macon murmurs quiet promises to her.

After she's gone, they sit around the breakfast table while Leah reads a list of security measures that might have been taken to prevent people like them from doing things like this. "Well-trained guards," she says, "Getting rid of them will require either a lot of luck or a steady hand."

Macon only nods to Obidias. "Think you can handle that?"

Obidias returns the nod slowly, loading his pipe. The thought of not having eyes above doesn't even occur to most of them. Replacing Fitz is something Macon doesn't want to do; the man had an aim that rivaled Macon's. The former said he focused on his heartbeat and Leah's breathing; Macon couldn't refute him, not now, at least.

"We're far enough out, police won't be a problem." She glances at Macon. "I'm going to need you in there with me while I deal with finding him."

"Easily managed." He takes a breath. "Obidias, you need the hearse. _Riddle's _are hard enough to come by without having to look for a proper replacement." He exhales. "Leah and I will take the Humberette." He taps his fingers lightly against the desk. "Different locations, simply to add more security." Leah nods. "If something goes wrong, we need to meet somewhere."

"Ravenwood," Leah offers. Obidias's eyes flash.

"Fine," Macon obliges.

"Damned place better be," Obidias adds.

* * *

><p>The day leading up to the "mission" is uneventful. Leah drinks her tea and waters her plants after the morning rush, as always. Obidias leans against the windowsill and smokes through two cigarettes. Macon loads and reloads the guns. All in all, when he sees the mill looming in the distance, and Leah looks at him with an unreadable expression before leading the way up to the mill, no part of him is concerned. Macon glances to the nearby office building—some building, it used to be populated, surely—and imagines he can see Obidias. He knows the area well enough.<p>

They enter the building with minimal problems—two or three men are shot before they reach them—and the door is unlocked. Inside, there's a staircase and a small room. Macon rather thinks the wooden floors hide a basement, but, never the less, he allows Leah to take the small closet in the far corner.

The new prisoner makes Hiram nervous.

He shouldn't. He's been turnkey for three months now, first in the keep of a vigilante with a penchant for imprisoning anyone who looked a semblance of a challenge, and now for Silas. The job is much the same. Keep the doors locked. Make sure the captive is fed enough to stay alive, not comfortable. Call for help if anything becomes amiss.

But.

You aren't supposed to keep Light Casters. They aren't worth the trouble, especially not when they are involved like this one was.

You also aren't supposed to question Silas Ravenwood. Not in public, not in private, not in the darkest recesses of your head. Ever.

When those two come in conflict, what is Hiram supposed to do?

_Don't think about it, _he tells himself, as he makes his rounds, peering into the grated slot in each door to be sure each person is present and alive. The latter is more important with some than others. _Just do your job. _In truth, the place is nearly empty. It's not a prison anyway—it's a mill—and the more risk was involved, the further south the captives were taken. Maybe that would happen to the Light Caster. Maybe he'd be gone soon, and Hiram wouldn't have to worry about him anymore.

With a sigh, he settles down onto a rough-hewn bench he had placed in the narrow hallway and pours himself a cup of tea from a ewer on the table next to him. He took a long, deep drink. He almost didn't notice the footfall on the stairs.

Almost.

* * *

><p>Macon taps time into his slacks while he scans the area. It isn't long before the silence treads his nerves. He turns on his heels, little circles are made in the dirt-covered floor, and follows Leah's footsteps. The sun is starting to sink, finally.<p>

When he reaches the closet structure in the corner, he notices the narrow stairs and sighs. Down, of course, it couldn't have gone up into a nice loft, no, it had to go down into the depths. Macon doesn't mind—hell, he's been to dives scarier than this mill, but the implications are there. His Brogues tap down the wooden stairs in time to his fingers.

He almost trips on the body at the bottom of the stairs. His stomach drops at the thought of it being Fitzwilliam—or worse, he ponders, Leah—but sees only a young man who couldn't have possibly known Macon at all. He gently nudges the man with the toe of his shoe; a weak moan escapes the body. Leah, he imagines.

He looks around, finally. Instead of a chamber of sorts, there's a narrow hallway obscured by a thick bench. A door is ajar, though, at the end, and Macon's hand is on the trigger, just skirting around firing. He walks carefully enough in the dim light.

* * *

><p>Technically, Macon wasn't wrong.<p>

Fitzwilliam is there, in the most basic of senses. Leah holds him on the ground, limp in her arms, a shallow gash running down the side of his face. She doesn't say a word, and Macon can't make her.

"He's not dead," she finally manages. He nods briskly.

"There's not enough time to debate ethics, Leah." She laughs.

"Ethics, Macon? What could possibly be ethical about this?" Her eyes meet his, wild, before they close, and she exhales.

"Get him upstairs, at least. I'll take care of the man you've so carefully hindered." Leah hesitates. "You can't Travel with him, not down here. I can manage to drive the Humberette safely enough." She blinks. "If he has any chance of surviving, we need to reassemble at _Lucille's_."

She lifts the limp body with ease. Soon enough, Macon is alone with the wheezing breaths of the man down the hallway, and the tear of Traveling echoes in his ears. He takes great care to tie the man up with strips of his own shirt, sufficiently craft a gag to muffle any potential cries, shackle him where Fitzwilliam was, and throw a threadbare blanket over the body. In the darkness of the hall, nearly nothing was amiss.

Macon drives the Humberette with Obidias not far behind in the _Riddle's_. _Prometheus_ continues on the steering wheel. He can almost feel Obidias's stream of swears.

* * *

><p>It's Macon who notices something deeper is happening. It's fairly simple when Leah sits next to what looks like a corpse for three days, but the gash has healed into a scar—given it's a scar that is garish, like a beast tore into the side of his face—and the skin has taken on a paler tone. Macon hypothesizes, with such evidence, that Silas, the clever bastard he is, stole their sniper from them.<p>

He has succeeded in stealing the green eyes and the charming heartbeat. Somehow, he wants to believe Leah loved him for more than something as arbitrary as that. Even more surprising is the fact no one at all is shocked by the theory becoming correct.

Lena doesn't return for a few more days—the Kents were obliged to watch her for another week after the successful recapture mission. When she does, she sees black eyes and faster reflexes. Fitzwilliam, himself, jokes about being a better shot. A laugh bursts from Obidias at the quip, his lips stretching into a smile around his almost constant cigarette. Leah doesn't take the development as well as Macon does; he suspects it has something to do with matters of the heart and doesn't bother her to try harder at being optimistic.

* * *

><p>As far as Macon's concerned, the blip was far better than anticipated. Worst case, he had lost a damned good hand. Of course, Leah would have been inconsolable; she wasn't much better in this state, but her fury was easily directed to Valerian, not towards Macon. Macon gives the Humberette to Fitzwilliam as a housewarming gift, of sorts. He supposes Fitzwilliam has earned that much.<p>

Fitzwilliam doesn't need much help acclimating to the change. He flinches slightly when the rifle recoils, partially from the now louder sound and mostly from the experience of feeling everything slightly more than before. They quickly earn enough extra funds to buy transceivers. The afternoon is passed with Lena giggling while Fitzwilliam and Macon attempt to wire the damned thing into the wall.

* * *

><p>It's Obidias's idea to hit the bank. It's not because they need the money as much as it is to see if they can, to make a bit of history.<p>

Fitzwilliam scoped the area earlier. He knows there's a side door that leads to an alley, and if they can simply _disappear_, they won't be pursued. Macon knows it's not so simple. Traveling, they can manage. There's the slight risk of someone being affiliated with Valerian—worse, with Ravenwood. Macon pushes the thought to the side, though, and takes Fitzwilliam's analysis seriously. They sit around the breakfast table again, Lena on Macon's lap, Fitzwilliam's arms resting on the back of Leah's chair, and Obidias with a notebook. From the various accounts, they've accumulated a list of security measures the bank might have taken to prevent people like them from doing things like this.

"We'll need some number of firearms."

Obidias tilts his head. "I'm a good enough shot, if you need Fitz elsewhere."

Macon glances at Fitzwilliam. "Can you keep us covered?"

He nods once. "If I can detonate a stick of dynamite, we'll get into the vault easily enough."

"After the explosion, we're going to have to work around more police."

"Leah and I can be up front," Macon suggests. "We can easily cover Fitzwilliam while he heads for the vault and back again."

Leah sips her tea and considers the options. "That's Obidias in the building opposite of the bank," she begins, counting on her fingers, "Macon and I inside covering Fitzwilliam, who deals with the vault. Barclay offered a car already, correct?"

Macon nods. "Three vehicles, total. We'll have them in different positions. Obidias, between you and I, we need to understand where the police are." Obidias nods. "We'll stick with Ravenwood, if anything goes wrong."

* * *

><p>Two days before the heist, Fitzwilliam stumbles in at two AM. He takes a look around—the lights are off, the only sound is faint breathing—and decides the best course of action is to be quiet. He toes off his shoes and makes his way, slowly, down the hallway, manages to make it passed the room where someone is crashing on the couch. He tilts his head and hesitates.<p>

Obidias lies rigid and still, as a corpse, but his features seem more relaxed than normal. His hands are empty, but Fitzwilliam is afraid to wake him as there's no doubt in his mind that Obidias has some sort of weapon close by, even now. He leaves him be and makes his way to the small bathroom, turning on the lights that suddenly shine too brightly.

Now he can see the bloodstains in the mirror. He starts the slow process of cleaning it off, not wanting to smell like death when he goes to sleep tonight. He's tired already. Everything is heavy, from his eyelids to his hands when they trace small circles on his face and neck. He rubs his palms until they're an irritated, sore pink, to remove the stains. Then, finally, he's satisfied.

Back in the hallway, everything is quiet. Then a noise, a loud boom, startles him. It bellows through the hallway, but it feels distant, and it takes him too long to realize it is thunder. It reminds him of Lena. He glances through the first door to his right, into Macon's room. He's not in tonight—he manned _Lucille's _earlier and left after that—but he still glances at his room, seeing a picture of a woman and a man gleam from the wardrobe.

Fitzwilliam continues, out of habit, to where Leah's office is. The books still line the shelves. Her plants have slowly made their way to Fitzwilliam's flat. His lips tug into a grin at the sight that awaits him. There's a coat laid over Leah's chair, the one that swivels. The blinders are down, but the window is open and that means he can hear the rain. He stops there, in the doorway, listening to Leah's breathing and the raindrops. He turns around to see her lying on her bed with her back to the door. She's wearing nothing but a long nightshirt; Fitzwilliam knows this because Leah's somehow managed to kick her blanket to the floor.

It's not easy for him to change without making noise. The fabric-against-fabric sound is hardly noticeable normally, but now Fitzwilliam feels like it's the loudest thing in the world. He almost stumbles as he steps out of his jeans. When he's down to his underwear and nightshirt, he sits down onto the bed, on the two inches Leah's left for him. He considers moving or pushing her around to make more space, but it's hard for him to bring himself to disturb her. Then, a sleepy, quiet voice comes from the dark beside him, tinged with equal parts annoyance and fondness.

"Come on, Fitz."

She moves aside just enough so they can both lie side by side, and Fitzwilliam happily does as suggested, draping an arm around Leah's waist for good measure. She's already asleep again, and, as such, cannot protest, and Fitzwilliam picks the blanket up from the floor to drape it over them. Sighs. Listens to the thunder. Waits for the rain to stop.

* * *

><p>Leah hums to <em>Prometheus<em>. She's sitting behind Fitzwilliam, who keeps his eyes on the road, looking at anything but Leah or the side roads. The streets around them are almost deserted. They've chosen a good time to get to work.

"Are you okay back there?" Fitzwilliam asks, finally, adjusting the rear view mirror. When she doesn't answer, he sighs. "Don't die in there. It'll cost too much to bury you."

And, just like that, the illusion is lost. They're two criminals in a car again, and it's very serious. Fitzwilliam clenches and unclenches his fists. He almost pulls the car over to get outside and breathe. When it finally is plausible, Leah blinks and opens her mouth to retort before gesturing to the entrance of the bank. Fitzwilliam looks to the rooftops again in an attempt to see Obidias. She swallows her quip. Leah knows the area well enough from scoping it earlier in the week. Broad, marble steps lead up to the double doors with the bank's name above them, and inside, there will be a row of cashiers behind desks.

When Leah steps inside, she does feel odd. There's a great moment of clarity where she remembers agreeing to this. A minute where everything is clear and cool and her thoughts flow properly, one after the other like she supposes normal people feel all the time. She watches Fitzwilliam intently and supposes he gets the same rush. They nod to each other. Leah wants to believe that moment is the one she will replay over and over in his mind.

Macon, having taken Fitzwilliam's Humberette to have a backup getaway vehicle, arrives looking like he owns the place—dressed in a formal suit and clean-shaven. He meets Leah's eyes before he saunters up to the front desk and stares at the woman behind it.

She smiles, and Leah can hear everything from the teller's question about Macon's day to what he wanted. Macon certainly answers the latter.

"Cooperate and nobody gets hurt!" His voice echoes off the walls, and the room has suddenly gone dead quiet. Leah's fingers tap faster. "Hands in the air. This is a robbery." They never were the type to do note jobs.

Leah takes a deep breath. There's a whispering around the room; people freeze on the spot—then, Leah adjusts her cap, pulls her gun out, points it to the ceiling, presses the trigger briefly, and fires off one, two, three warning shots. Macon angles his shots for the walls, edging close to the heads of panicked civilians.

Everything happens in a rush. The clock is ticking as Macon waves Fitzwilliam over and the latter disappears deeper into the bank. He has two bags with him, one for money and one for explosives, and the equal weight of them makes him have clumsier steps. Leah locks eyes with him once as he walks by and notices how serious he looks.

Leah watches Macon herd the people together like cattle, wondering how much experience the man has with this kind of job. Leah looks for any sign of Fitzwilliam, tightens her grip on his gun. It's a matter of time before sirens will be outside, and she can't wait for the tension of waiting to be over with. She keeps her weapon in one hand, ready—not that he plans on using it before the police arrive—and uses the other to adjust her cap to secure her hair. She glances out the window to see the gleam of a scope. It flashes one, two, five times. She flashes the same number on her fingers.

Macon, having seen the message, looks at the man at his feet in a way that makes the man whimper.

They all wait.

Leah closes her eyes and, now, the sirens aren't in her imagination.

"Why isn't he hurrying?" she mutters.

"I don't—" Macon begins, but he is silenced—everything is silenced—by a dull _boom _as an explosion goes off deeper inside the building. Leah feels no shockwave, but the sound alone shakes her core. Bits of plaster rain from the ceiling, dust suspended in the air for one long moment between Leah taking a deep breath and glancing to the doorway Fitzwilliam disappeared behind.

She sighs and glances frantically—aware that she looks frantic—from Macon to the windows. The scope flashes again, one, two, three. Her fingers flash the response quietly, trembling.

"They're too fast," Macon states. "They expected us."

"Must have," Leah snaps, "but right now, we need to get that idiot out of here—" If Macon notices her priorities, then he doesn't mention it. His leg jumps.

"We need to make a run for it." His voice has changed slightly. The sound of cars coming to a screeching halt outside says much the same. Leah mutters an expletive.

"I know." Leah looks at Macon, hoping a glare can convey everything she doesn't have time to say. They should run. That's what anyone with their specific kind of common sense would do. But there's no way she can do that, not after the last months. Macon looks at her like she's crazy, but Leah wants him to understand it's because of Macon they're here. She mouths a name that causes Macon's hand to twitch towards the trigger. The same name is the reason he's currently carrying a small, golden book charm in his left pant pocket, as he always has.

The scope gleams again. The warning helps, stops Leah from flinching when the gunshot echoes outside, and maybe there's the sound of a body hitting the ground, too. Macon's stance softens before he gestures towards the area behind the front desk with his gun. "I'll keep them off you."

Leah flashes a smile, gets a running start, jumps across the desk, and bolts down the hallway, following the smell of smoke to her destination.

* * *

><p>Every step she takes feels heavy. The hallway's green walls blur before her eyes as she runs into an open door, finding the room where the smoke is thickest. The lights in the ceiling have been knocked out, leaving the room only dimly lit. She can hear coughing. As the dust disperses around her, she sees a man kneeling on the floor. The black jacket belongs to Macon, but Fitzwilliam wore for today, solely. She goes to his side and pulls him up. The fact that Fitz doesn't grip her hand tightly calms him; the man still appears like he's got everything under control.<p>

"Sorry," he coughs. Fitzwilliam's eyes dart to the vault, and Leah understands. She pulls at the door - the metal is discolored now, turned and wrought into strange angles and protrusions. The vault is heavy and only opens slowly, still resisting but ultimately damaged so much by the blast that Leah can see the green bills inside. She turns towards Fitzwilliam, whose face is lit up in a smile—"You better fill your bag pretty fast, Fitz. The cops are on us."

Fitz gets to work without any delay, and Leah helps him—grabs the small bundles and tries to think about how she'll feel when they're all back at home because right now she can't help but think about the dangers of the heist more than anything else. Fitz places a hand on her shoulder and Leah turns to see his face.

"How bad is it?"

"Macon sounded like it was going to be dodgy. I don't know if they're at the front steps now but—"

"Let's go."

Leah can't help but stare a bit as Fitzwilliam takes charge, zipping up his bag, hoisting it over his shoulder, and drawing his pistol.

They hear gunfire, dulled by the walls but still too close and as one, the two of them start running.

In the silence between gunshots, Leah feels as if she's gone deaf. She can only hear the blood rushing through her veins as she follows Fitzwilliam down the hallway, dreading what they might find on the other end. When Leah steps into the main hall, everything seems bright white in comparison to where they've come from, sunlight falling in through the windows, the walls the same shade of light grey as the marble floor. There are bullet holes in the—thankfully still closed—entrance doors, and Leah follows the rays of sunlight coming through them to the floor where their hostages are still huddled up. There're three bodies lying down, but Leah can't tell if they're exhausted or executed, if the shaking shoulders and hidden faces are a result of sobbing or convulsions. Amidst all of that is an overturned table where Macon kneels, his body a black, dark silhouette. His gun is pointed at the doors, and he does not look away for a moment even as Fitzwilliam speaks to him.

"What's happening?" Fitz inquires, stepping up to take cover beside Macon, who answers sternly.

"Someone pressed some alarm, who knows—the police are outside, though, and Obidias says we have 10 minutes, maximum, before reinforcements arrive."

"What do we do?" Leah asks, running a hand through her hair and sending a little cloud of dust out into the air. "Do we make a run for it or-"

"Split up," Macon suggests. There's a weight to his voice as he speaks, one that Leah hasn't heard before. "The Humberette is down the street to the left."

Leah clenches her grip around her pistol. They've no time to think out a plan. "We've no choice but rushing to our deaths?" she asks steadily. When she doesn't receive an answer, she curses colorfully. "Fine. I'll cover you. Fitz, can you go to the Humberette?"

"Yes. You'll—"

"Try to make it there, too," Leah says, her voice growing exasperated, "There are two cars left, right?"

Macon touches his neck, a fleeting gesture that Leah knows the meaning of. He takes a breath, then slips into a mode that looks more like he's preparing for battle, cracking his knuckles and making Fitz cringe at the sound.

"Let's go," Macon suddenly exclaims, and he fixes his jacket so he looks more respectable. "Fitz, hand me the other bag. Split the money."

Fitzwilliam hesitates only a second before doing as he is asked.

Macon nods at the pair, uttering a single low "good luck" before stepping out from behind his barricade and ramming the door, the rest of them right behind him.

Leah wants to yell, to scream her lungs out. She doesn't. As she runs, almost stumbling down the marble steps, some part of her manages to remain calm and take notice of where the weakest link in the blockade before them must be. She counts about nine policemen dressed in black and blue with matching cars parked in a semi-circles around them, but Leah has the jump on them, watching them take a moment too long to react. Before they've all aimed properly at the madmen running towards them, Leah has already unloaded her gun into the nearest person, a blonde, old, dead man whose entire body shakes as he is hit multiple times in the chest.

Leah is vaguely aware of something similar going on beside her, of the booming sound of a grenade. Fitz runs in front of him, and Leah catches only glimpses of white knuckles, wide eyes and blood trailing down her arm before she vaults across one of the vehicles, landing just next to a woman who falls down moments after, hit right between the eyes by some unseen, though not unknown, sniper. She stops there for a moment, looking at Fitzwilliam but unable to speak to him. They're both half deaf from the gunshots and the screams, but Fitz knows Leah says follow me. Then she turns away and runs for it, confident that Fitzwilliam will follow her even though—

Even though it's misplaced confidence. Seconds after she's turned around someone pushes Fitz down until he collides with the asphalt. The rough ground scrapes against his face and hands and oh, the person is Macon and they both literally dodged a bullet. Leah's long gone.

Macon pulls at his wrist and gets him back up on his feet, yells something Fitzwilliam doesn't understand and then leads him away, maybe right, Fitzwilliam doesn't know. He's lost all concept of right way or wrong way by the time the next man falls down at his feet and a bullet goes within inches of his shoulder. All he wants is go get away. Something has triggered in Macon, making the otherwise so composed man fight not only for himself, but for Fitzwilliam, too—Fitzwilliam somehow knows that if he were to stop, Macon wouldn't leave him. He's lost all track of Leah.

His heart is beating too fast and Fitz is out of breath as he gets through a narrow gap between two cars, rushing down the empty street behind the blockade. He knows Macon is right behind him and, turning around for a second, he fires once at the man pursuing them. He doesn't register whether it's a hit or a miss; he just keeps running. Down to the right, left, into the side alley—he finds a car, his Humberette, where Macon left it, and watches Macon follow him only to turn his eyes back towards the alleyway. He hesitates. "Lena, I need to grab…" His hands move to mime what he can't say. Fitz frowns. When Fitz starts the engine and pulls out, accelerating in a way that pulls on his stomach, Fitz can watch the two cars picking up pursuit of Macon rushing down the alleys.

Fitzwilliam bites his lip as he runs a red light and as they continue through a flash of alleys and tunnels, the taste of blood spreads through his mouth. He's headed out of town where he can hide in the hills, find his way to a safe house on the docks or the meeting point up the mountain—he has to make his way around the city, straying on the fringes of the map. There are police cars beside him, Fitz notices, but they're not chasing him. They're chasing an open car as it speeds down the main road, and though Fitz can only see it for a second as they head through a crossing he knows without any doubt that it is the one Leah and Obidias stole. Knows they're done for.

The sight sends everything surging inside him.

Fitz's view is blocked by buildings and fences before he can see Leah hit forested hill and come to a sudden, violent halt. His brain is more than willing to supply him with images, though.

He hates the fact that they are divided and scrambling and fleeing away from each other—most of all he wants to jump out the car and follow the police cars and shoot them down so he can help Leah and Obidias like he feels he should. Like he knows he shouldn't because it'd be suicide and like nobody in every gang he's ever heard of ever did. Because it's only the four of them and him in particular could be so stupid. As Fitz takes a turn onto a bridge, a bullet pierces through the back window of his car. It misses him, but the shock makes Fitz turn the steering wheel just a little, his fingers gripping tightly onto the metal.

Fitz slows down enough to hit the driver this time.

The man's spasms make him a danger to everyone else on the road as the car teeters close to the edge of the bridge. Fitz doesn't notice if it actually goes in, because within seconds he's dodging another shot when the other car overtakes the first and drives far closer. His hands are shaking. He hits tires, makes the police car screech and turn wildly—but something possesses the cop behind the wheel to press the gas down, to push the car further still until it hits and sends Fitz into the dashboard, giving him an up-and-close view of what it looks like when he loses control—there's some impact further down the line and that's what sends him over the edge. He's off the ground for a moment. Falling.

Then there's only water.

* * *

><p>Later he'll remember those few minutes as a haze, as a panicked fight against glass and metal and waves and undercurrents, but he will talk about it as if it wasn't like that at all. Fitz won't mention looking back and seeing a man drowning inside the sinking police car—he will just say the he swam to the surface and headed for the coast after breaking the windows. Fitz won't say that he couldn't get out of the car before he remembered he had to see Leah—he thought of her slipping away and gripped tightly onto the door, nails pressing into the wood and metal, in order to push out. He doesn't mention the frantic fear and words can't describe the cold that crept into his bones from that kind of water. Every time he talks about it, the story starts with "I made it to the shore..."<p>

* * *

><p>And then he walks to Ravenwood.<p>

He's lucky he's close to the designated meeting point. He's lucky that it's warm out and that the sun is setting, but he doesn't care about it. He's freezing, steps shaky as he stumble up the gravel path. At least he's lost the police.

Fitz keeps quiet. He walks through soft hills with sparse trees and small creeks littered with pebbles and bullets, and as Fitz grows warmer from walking, he opens his mouth as if to speak—but he seems to second-guess everything and shuts it again every time.

There's nothing.

The sky is wide and empty there, no trees obstructing it—Abraham made sure of that when he built it all that time ago. The soft earth is without tracks, a clean slate. The house, the manor, looms in the copse.

Fitz keeps standing on the edge. He realizes he hadn't even thought about getting away from the manor again and Fitz wonders what happened to the man who used to let subordinates die so he could get out of danger. He is going to go back to the _Lucille's_, he thinks, if maybe...

No, he can't start doing maybe's.

Leah's probably out of town already, like he said. And Obidias, too. And...

He takes a step forward, spitting blood out onto the dry grass at his feet and then he stands there and looks down upon the city. He is just tired, worn paper-thin. Not by the heist itself, not by the work or the stress, but by the loss.

Fitz turns around with the intent to go back down, to somehow make it before nightfall, when he hears the strangest sound.

The sound of a car all the way up here. A car making it's way through the creeks, getting tangled up in vines and narrowly avoiding collisions with rocks. The sound of a someone yelling like some harpy. It's coming closer. Fitz freezes out in the open like an animal.

Obidias pulls up the gravel road in a car that isn't the one he left home with. This one is black, a bit rough in some places but that doesn't matter. It could have been a bicycle for all Fitz cares because the most important thing is that it stops and Obidias steps out, Fitz in tow. The three of them look each other in the eyes. Fitz swallows hard, Leah's charcoal is smudged up her face, and Obidias is still tense. And then there's one last headlight down the street, and Leah mutters something about hoping it is Macon. The headlight follows the gravel road that takes the driver around bends and turns, leaving them temporarily out of sight on their way up which makes Fitz wonder, each time, if they're going to reappear on the other side of that outcropping or those trees. He seems to be the only one surprised by this. Leah shakes her head and Obidias lights a cigarette.

As soon as the light comes into view, Fitz understands it's the hearse with a headlight shot out. It stops ten feet in front of him. The front door opens and Macon exits; his shoulders are tense. He doesn't turn to the back seat.

Macon scowls, and he steps towards the others so they end up forming a little circle in the copse. The light illuminates a number of crimson stains and tears in his normally pristine button-up. His jacket gleams maroon in spots. A cut just below his eyebrow has been hastily sewn shut.

"Where's the girl?" Fitz asks, mouth dry.

"In the back seat," Macon explains, tired and irritated. "Silas decided it was high time for a cordial family reunion."

Leah smiles. The conversation stops there—they can talk about who got them out of the mess, but not about where to place the blame. That's for later. Right now they just stand there.

Above them is the sky, dark and glimmering with with shrouded stars.

Underneath them is a city ripe for the taking. A little shaken now, maybe. A little different after today, just as they are.

Fitzwilliam finds Leah's side quickly, lets their fingers intertwine again.

It's a nice moment. The memory of it will stay with each of them as a more permanent mark than any ink they put under their skin - it'll cut deeper, stay longer. It'll come to Obidias when he takes his gun into his hand and considers for just a moment what he could do when they all turn their backs to him. It'll be in Leah's mind when she lays down her gun, with Fitzwilliam when he feels like running and with Lena when she wakes up afraid. With Macon when he thinks about whether he is a rich man, a happy man, both, neither.

"Anyway," Macon says, straightening his torn and crimson-stained shirt, "as I said to Lena half an hour ago—let's go."


	4. Esprit d'Escalier

Honestly, I wasn't very happy about last chapter, either. Maybe this one feels more like a conclusion? It's basically here to tie up loose ends, nothing more. All though, there are subtle references to the plot of the Caster Chronicles (as in Macon sets up to move Lena into Ravenwood more permanently). Apologies for the brief chapter. Maybe it leaves room for a sequel?

All disclaimers apply, as always.

* * *

><p>After the failed heist, after they nearly lost each other and themselves, certain people disappear. Macon is the one to propose focusing on alcohol and drugs, rather than blatantly putting their name into the news.<p>

They are still branded with their logo—a little black cat. Macon finally gave in after the heist and had the tattoo placed on his back so it wouldn't haunt him in the mirror but the other members could see it, occasionally. Leah received the mark on the back of her neck, hidden behind the swish of a ponytail and hot under Fitz's fingers. Fitzwilliam has the cat placed on his shoulder, near where the bullet should have pierced his skin, would have, had Macon not pushed him to the ground.

It's enough for Macon. They now have time to focus on Valerian, to focus on the rising question of what to do with Lena, and to focus on rebuilding and fortifying their defenses. They have a cozy little profit, enough to fund a renovation of the basement into a better establishment, one that resembles an extension of Ravenwood. A small part of it is used to bribe buyers out from Valerian; Macon starts picking up caskets filled with booze in the, thankfully, practically new hearse.

The funeral business starts up again. Of course, there are a select few who might make the connections in later years, that a gang had buried their loved one, but few have the courage to call any one of the members out on it. Their market is typically made of other criminals, other Casters and Cubi running from the law, or, more commonly, running from problems. Macon doesn't mind. He persuades a majority of _Ravenwood's _customers to follow him to the basement under the pretense of approving the deceased's appearance only to give a tumbler of scotch from his own reserves. It keeps the business running, certainly, and brings more customers by the year.

They keep their heads down, though. Obidias eventually moves to Barbados with his piece of their profit. Macon isn't bitter about it. He does have select words when the criminal attempts to steal the Caster Chronicles, though, and even more when his fingers are replaced with snakes. However, he abandoned _Lucille's _when he walked out the door, and Macon doesn't spend much time at all worrying about the consequences.

* * *

><p>Time passes quickly. Years pass. Lena grows into a fine young woman who knows very little of what goes on during the evenings, as she migrates from home to home, rarely spending time at Ravenwood Manor or <em>Lucille's<em>. It's too dangerous, Macon concludes, to have her in one place for an extended period of time. Valerian thrives and recruits new members quicker than Macon had ever feared. The establishment never does retaliate for what happened at the mill. Macon imagines it has something to do with anticipation; his hair starts graying from the waiting and the worrying.

Leah handles _Lucille's _with ease, and Fitzwilliam moves in as the acting financer. Macon slowly moves from the establishment and into Ravenwood. He doesn't stay long, ever; he's constantly traveling, constantly testing how to solve the problem of Lena's curse. Leah sends letters, of course, and Lena keeps Boo with her.

* * *

><p>He finds his answer, eventually. The tome is old—the text is cracked, and the pages are yellowed—but the words are clear. He stands as he had with the map of the city, the city he once had under his control, with his hands framing the text. He ignores the trembling in his fingers, ignores the ache in his chest. The lights flicker. He doesn't react, for a second, a minute, a century. Then, finally, a smile twitches on his lips. A short, rich chuckle escapes him. <em>Good heavens<em>, he wonders,_ is this a test? Is this a trial?_

The thought is hammered into his head when he finds Lila Jane in an alley. Her murder is posed as an accident; Macon has no doubt in his mind of Valerian's hand in this. Somehow, Macon knows better than to think she suddenly had the urge to run her car into the side of a building. Leah sends her regards. Macon doesn't leave his study for a week; he pays fully for a funeral and buys his plot the next day. He doesn't attend the funeral. Fitzwilliam does, though, as no one know his face, and reports it was as lovely as a funeral can be.

* * *

><p>He throws himself into research. Eventually, he comes up with the conclusion he had previously reached was the only plausible answer. He goes about planning as he always does, carefully and slowly. It's almost two months before he writes to Leah. Her response is given quickly, and he can't help the grin that tugs at his lips. He loads and reloads his gun in an attempt to calm himself, running his fingers over the trigger several times. Dimly, he wonders if there's anyway to stop, now. Instead of pondering it, he pens a letter asking to give residence to Lena and grabs his Colt.<p>

* * *

><p>It shouldn't have been done there. The citizens are asleep, literally and metaphorically, but the doors are thin enough for nerves to be sensitive. Windows are starting to dim, which calms frayed ends nicely, but the building twenty paces down has a light on in the upper floor. The diner across the street, the one with the quaint name and embossed storefront—the one he knows because he's the one who gave it a new lease on life, the one who refurbished the basement and came up with the logo—appears vacant for the night.<p>

Few cars travel the side street; fewer of them ride with any semblance of a good intention. The alleys are well worn, and the brick has glinted crimson before the current rainfall washed the evidence away. The buildings are full of quiet people who lead quiet lives, and the alleys find themselves homes to the best the street has to offer.

Which is precisely what makes the man leaning against the wooden storefront nervous. It isn't the distinct smell of copper that somehow manages to cling stubbornly to the air or the fact his employer, the stocky man who preferred slow cigars and quick women, is toeing the line between inquiring and demanding. It isn't the sharp miserableness that accompanies rain in this dreary, mucked up town and should have, by now, ruined his mood.

His thumb works over the face of his fob. His lips pull into an indifferent frown. His brow furrow gently. He takes a deep breath. His thin fingers dance across his dark slacks. Another five minutes and he'll light a cigar. Ten, and the package he has hidden in his suit jacket will be indiscreetly placed beneath the storefront window. He leans his head back. It will be unfortunate if it comes to that; the small tattoo between his shoulders is an asset he can't afford to lose.

He glances around the street again. The hazy curtain of rain obscures most of the forms that evades the shadows. His heart titters in his chest. Thin, pale fingers tap _Prometheus_ into slacks. He should leave. His shoes, shining in the dull streetlight, shuffle. His head tilts. He exhales sharply.

She stands on the street corner, clad in a filmy dress and Fitzwilliam's jacket. Her hair is in mussed, loose, and damp waves. Her eyes meet his, and she walks to him. Her stride is whimsical, graceful, filled with finesse and calculation. Her dress—that white dress he had first met her in—billows behind her with the wind. She looks like a goddess, all storm and rain. He steps towards her out of instinct.

They meet in front of the little diner, her eyes full of tears and his of warning. He glances at her face: hair matted together, tears running down pale cheeks, damnably thick eyelashes framing those glassy eyes. He raises a brow and pulls the package from his jacket. She holds out her dainty hand. Fitz must have had too much to drink—three shots of whiskey would do that to him—and left a blooming discoloration on her wrist. She blinks. The rain bounces off his suit. She tucks the Colt into the inside pocket of Fitz's jacket. He manages a small, tight smile. She nods. Soft, murmured words escape her rouged lips. _You should have been a performer._ Oh, it would have been far less condemning. His response is one of forced calm. _Dancing never suited me._

Their eyes lock. Neither of them acknowledges the blatant lie.

He turns away first. He forces himself to; the letter in his pocket is heavy and it will be wet, eventually, if he waits for the rain to stop. Brogue soles trot down the alley that smells of copper and lead. His thumbs slip into his pockets. He walks quickly, distinctly, with purpose. She would do well to hide herself, and her flimsy dress, away in one of those barely lit buildings, preferably the cafe.

Whatever comes into focus of his Colt that night will become a corpse.

He won't be around to bury the poor soul. He has his own ghost to chase, one with green eyes and a dark mane of curls. His fingers tighten around the letter in his pocket.

He glances at the moon. Delphine wouldn't mind a cordial visit, surely.


End file.
